Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Lower Rock Creek Falls

I was in search of some easy to access waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge area to take some friends to this past weekend. I have done all of the easy hikes along the Columbia River Highway with my son, so I wanted to find something I had not done. I found two potential destinations. The first ended up being closed by a roadblock, so we set out to find Lower Rock Creek Falls. The location was easy to find. We hiked down a steep trail into the woods behind a quickly growing neighborhood outside Stevenson, Washington. The trail lead us straight to a cliffside where we could see the roaring Rock Creek below in a deep canyon. We could hear the falls, but still could not see it. We went a bit further north and found it. However, it was more than a bit sketchy.

I left my son with my friends and scrambled down a short but steep, muddy embankment to an crumbling cliffside above the falls. I have been on many adventures that take me to some mildly precarious situations in order to get a photo. This one really got my heart racing though. The wide open cliffside was scary! You could see where the edge was breaking away between a foot and 2 feet from the edge. On the opposite side of the wide canyon from where I was standing, rocks and dirt were constantly sliding down into the tumultuous creek below. I very carefully set my tripod up close the edge, stood way back and using my remote shutter release, snapped this shot of the 53 ft drop. It was pretty incredible, this large thunderous waterfall just beyond this newly forming housing development. But I imagine that because of the current active expansion of the neighborhood that this dangerous area will soon be off limits to visitors. I am kind of shocked it has not been blocked off already.